so, yesterday i registered on classmates.com for the first time. i immediately regretted it, because i honestly fear anyone from school contacting me, even after all this time. i don't know what i am actually AFRAID of, except for those few people that i KNOW would still be an a-hole to me, even after 15 years. man, i HATED school. i hated most of the people in my school. i couldn't WAIT to get out of there. when i graduated, they called my name, i grabbed my diploma, and i walked right out and walked home. i got in a huge fight with my mom that day, because i so desperately did not want to go. i was SO DONE. but, i had family that, like, flew in from chicago for my graduation, so i was totally going. i gritted my teeth and trudged through it.
but i digress. i decided that classmates.com was nothing to be afraid of, dammit, so i registered. i laughed so bad when i saw the people's names! crazy! i have hardly seen anyone i graduated with in all this time, and it was just a trip. i really should scan some of the pages of my yearbook sometime. i defaced 75% of everyone in my class and put horrible obscene captions by their faces.
towards the end of my senior year, the class made some video where this big mean popular guy went around and interviewed everyone, asking them what they liked best about high school, and what they liked least. i was the last person they approached to do it. i gave one-word answers to the questions: i said "nothing" when asked what i liked best about school, and "everything" to what i liked least. they showed the video at the prom, apparently. i wouldn't know, because i didn't go.
anyway, the classmates.com thing and all this hipster talk has got me thinking about school, and the "hipsters" that attended my school. there was this group of Alterna-whores, as i called them, who totally hated me. they thought that i was the biggest poseur on earth. why, i don't know, because i wasn't trying to look like them, or infiltrate their little circle, or anything like that. i never, EVER even spoke to them. not once. but they thought i sucked. and they all thought they were sooooooo cool. they wore all black and all loved depeche mode. every one of 'em. um, YEAH, i can see why that made them SO AMAZING. wasn't that like everyone on EARTH in the late 80's-early 90's? meh.
this one teacher actually pulled me aside one day and asked me what i was trying to prove with the way that i looked. she said if i were her daughter, she wouldn't let me leave the house looking like that. i'll never forget that, i was so pissed! i even remember what i was wearing (well, of course i do. i am a woman and i remember what i was wearing for everything that ever happened to me, ever): it was a black mod wool mini-dress that was my mom's in the 60's, a pair of ripped-up red tights with a pair of black ripped-up tights on top of them, and combat boots. fool! she clearly didn't understand fashion!!!
looking back, i had like THE BEST lunch table in the whole wide world. it consisted of me, a pregnant junior, a chick who would periodically save up her lithium and then take them all at once, some guy whose name i can't even remember, but he was totally funny, and this chick jen whom i became really good friends with, but then she went all psycho on me after we graduated. girls are like that sometimes. i think it involved her sneaking out to go to a ramones show that she wasn't allowed to attend, but i convinced her to go, and she ended up denting her dad's car. oops.
but the star of my lunch table was ralph the janitor. ralph loved us, and we loved him. he used to lean up against the wall with his broom, and we'd shoot the breeze with him. he was sarcastic and funny and twisted in a great way. and he had great taste in music. but EWWWWWW, the Alterna-whores (and probably everybody else) thought we were such a-holes to actually ASSOCIATE with the JANITOR!!! awwww, ralph. :)
there was also a "senior roast" at the end of the year, where they would put everyone's picture up on a big screen and mr. nygard, the choral instructor, who always liked me (yes, i was in chorus and glee club, what's it to ya?!?!?), would spout out a blurb about each student. of course, i didn't go. but i was told the next day that, when coming upon my photo, good 'ol mr, nygard said, "ahhhh. stefanie is in style wherever she goes." awwww. :)
5 comments:
Nice reminiscences!
My lunch table in grade 9 consisted of preppies (rich folk's kids), and prep-wannabes (myself and best friend, and his friend). I would wear the same two polo shirts and imitation Lacose sweaters in constant roation, and used more hairspray than Platinum Blonde.
My friends were badass preps, and their lunch sport consisted of stealing ice cream sandwiches from the cafeteria. They called it a "SCOOP!", and would slide the items up the sleeves of their Beaver Canoe sweatshirts. I did it once myself (peer pressure) but didn't enjoy the whole thing. Eventually, the cafeterial ladies realized what was going on, and caught two of my pals, who were suspended.
In grade ten I got wise, and booked from that scene. I started listening to Suicidal Tendencies, Skinny Puppy and the Dead Milkmen, traded my prepware for skatepunk plaids and skull-laden tees, and spent all my spare time skateboarding. My new friends called me "Hardcore" because that was, like, my thing, man. Another member of our crew had bleach blond hair, big pectoral muscles, a drum kit and sold acid from a Tic-Tac container he kept in his pocket. We called him "Scrape" because he was a "Scraper" (metalhead).
The hardcore thing saw me through the rest of the high school ordeal. My friends and I had some good times together, despite it all. And then there's Frank--where the hell did that guy disappear to?
how many other people out there have long-lost franks in their lives! we need to start a Long-Lost Frank Society!
Man, mondo's lunch table sounds like something out of The Breakfast Club.
I had no one at my table. We didn't have tables. Because we're Aussie, and we're hardcore.
i like to think that your lunchtime consisted of going out and killing your meal every day. that *is* hardcore!! :)
Kill? Pffft, killing's for pansies. We eat it while it's still kickin'.
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